The goal of the Academic Nephrology Training Program at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) is to prepare trainees for successful academic careers through expert and comprehensive mentoring in laboratory-based, clinical, or translational research in kidney disease. The rationale for the program is the pressin need for well-trained faculty in adult and pediatric nephrology. Its major mission is to develop independent investigators in the pathophysiology, genetics, epidemiology and treatment of kidney diseases. The program described in this application has the faculty expertise, infrastructure, and research opportunities to provide outstanding training. The major emphasis of this application is the training of MD and MD/PhD postdoctoral fellows who anticipate research careers in academic medicine. Most of the proposed mentors are from the Divisions of Nephrology and Pediatric Nephrology at UCSF, but training faculty from other UCSF departments provide greater scope and depth of training opportunities. The training faculty has been selected to accommodate the increasingly complex and technologic nature of basic research training and to provide intensive mentoring in clinical (patient-oriented and health services) research methods. The training program emphasizes thematic and interdisciplinary research pertinent to kidney disease. Areas of investigation include renal epithelial cell biology and transport, kidney development, basic immunology and immunologic kidney disease, epidemiology of acute and chronic kidney disease and associated complications, and the evaluation of novel therapeutic regimens in chronic kidney disease including transplantation. Trainees will have full access to the UCSF and UC Berkeley curricula, including extensive didactic training within the UCSF Biomedical Sciences Program and the Advanced Training in Clinical Research Program and other training opportunities provided by the UCSF Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics and the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. Trainees are required to participate in regularly scheduled, formal Divisional research conferences in which trainees, mentors, and outside speakers present their research. Other elective basic and clinical research conferences are available at multiple UCSF campus sites. The progress of a trainee is monitored by the Fellowship Research Training Committee, selected jointly by the trainee and primary mentor. A formal T32 Executive Committee oversees the overall program and the progress of all trainees. Feedback from the trainees, mentors, and external reviewers are used to enhance and improve the training experience. The Program takes pride in its commitment to diversity and academic excellence and actively recruits women and minority trainees.